So last month in Darwin, in front of a room packed with cattle producers, Deputy Prime Minister Michael McCormack proudly delivered a major pre-budget announcement — $492.3 million to "upgrade priority freight routes in the Northern Territory".

The announcement was applauded by some, but others took the news more sceptically.

"We hope it gets spent pronto on the black stuff [bitumen]," said current NTCA president Chris Nott.

"The thing about these announcements is what timeframe they happen over."

There's no bad money …

The Coalition has now committed more than $770 million to some key roads in the NT in its last two budgets.

Scott Armstrong, from Beetaloo Station in the Barkly region, said the funding was a step in the right direction.

"I'm sure this will be a slow process from government, but I guess Rome wasn't built in a day," he said.

"We've seen work happening on the Barkly Stock Route [care of Federal Government funding in last year's Budget], so they've made a start there, which is good.

"I'd just encourage them to get going and keep it rolling until it's all done."

… Just so long as it comes

In a statement to ABC Rural, Mr McCormack said the NT would continue to benefit from the Government's Roads of Strategic Importance (ROSI) initiative:

The ROSI initiative is a rolling program of investments which will be delivered over the next 10 years to provide long-term opportunities to boost local industries and employment opportunities.

This includes an additional $1 billion in this year's budget, taking the total to $4.5 billion overall as part of a record $100 billion infrastructure plan secured by the Liberals and Nationals Government.

Given Labor's record of neglect for the regions, such funding commitments are at risk if Bill Shorten was ever to become Prime Minister, which is why long-term certainty is needed.

Country Hour listener Alex Nelson hopes the funding will stay no matter who wins the next election.

"What is most regrettable about the road funding announced in the budget, is all the opportunity lost from the years and decades of insufficient funding to the present day," Mr Nelson said.

"Imagine where the NT could be by now if governments of either stripe had prioritised major road upgrades during all this time.

"The 10-year timeframe provides no guarantee that governments in future will honour this [latest funding] commitment."